


The Morning After The Night Before

by ImhereImQuire



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, Drunkenness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 19:50:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImhereImQuire/pseuds/ImhereImQuire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set on the assumption that Tyrion has taken Satin away from the wall, based on earlier fics.</p><p>Tyrion has gotten very drunk and behaved badly. Satin is not impressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning After The Night Before

The narrow crack of light from between the drapes was an atrocity upon his eyes and he felt as though it’d been slammed repeatedly beneath a portcullis. “Oh gods, what happened?” he groaned, drawing the quilt above his head. Everything hurt. Not just his head, which felt as though it had been hollowed out and used to store pig’s shit, but everything. His shoulders were strained, his arms ached, his hips were far from content, and his knees felt grazed.

“What happened was that you drank” the boy sat across from him replied simply. Which was accurate, but not entirely helpful.

“I don’t remember.” He murmured, rubbing his eyes. The sharp laughter which greeted this statement made him deeply suspicious, and reluctantly he stuck his head from the covers. “Does that strike you as amusing?” he asked disapprovingly.

“Aye, but not surprising” Satin replied. “You were throwing back the firewater as though you thought it were about to spoil on the morrow.”

“Which explains my hangover, but not my aches. Did I…” he felt his face gingerly. It seemed… bruised, and as he ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth he found an unfamiliar sharpness. “Did I chip a tooth?”

“Most likely. You started a fight” the boy said, studying his nails, clearly without sympathy.

“A fight? You mean that I said something scathing and I was set upon?” he asked and the boy laughed again, not particularly kindly.

“ 'I mean to say' you smacked a man full in the face with a tankard and set him to bleeding. You started a fight” he insisted and when Tyrion scrutinised him to find some sign he was joking there was none to be found.

“Why did I start a fight?” he asked wearily.

“There was a man. He didn’t see you and spilled his drink. When he demanded you buy him another you told him to go hang…. “ there was a smile of approval on the boy’s face when he related this, but he then looked uncomfortable, as he often did when Tyrion demanded he tell him what others said of him. “And then he asked if you cared to repeat that, and…” he sighed. “He called you ‘giant’.” Satin wrinkled his nose, though there was none of the indignation on his behalf that Tyrion had grown to expect from the boy as he said, quite unnecessarily “He was taking the piss.”

“I gathered” he said wearily. The boy shrugged and again, there it was; a lack of compassion in his eyes. Tyrion became aware that he was being given the cold shoulder.

“You’re not happy with me” he ventured and Satin glared daggers at him.

“No, my lord” the words were calm and careful, putting him in mind of his northern bride, though even the admission of displeasure seemed a step along from what he’d had from Sansa.

“Care to elaborate, sweet Satin?” he asked, patting the mattress beside him, attempting a charm he felt too worse for wear to entirely give his all to.

The boy did not move from his chair. “Well, my lord… you fucked a tavern wench, threw up on my cloak, and called me the names of three different women. Three!” he huffed.

This sounded a poor show even to Tyrion’s ears, and though he could hazard a guess as to the identities of two of the women the other remained a mystery to him. “Three?” he asked carefully, guessing that he might be in for an ear bashing.

It never came though. “Three,” came the only response, and it was down to him to solicit more from the other.

“And this tavern wench?” he asked. He had a vague recollection now of red hair, the squeeze of a full pair of breasts against what remained of his nose and a trip out to the stables in the pouring rain.

“She had her eye on me, so she came to sit with us. I was trying to get rid of her, but you insisted on plying her with wine” Satin told him, sounding put upon.

“Of course I did. And when you refused her I went with her instead?”  he guessed. It did not sound below him.

“No, my lord” came the indignant response. “She kept pestering me for a kiss and you said that you could think of nothing finer than enjoying the attentions of boy and girl at once, and if she could consent to joining us then she’d have herself-“

“A gold coin, he interjected wearily. He didn’t remember making any such offering but he was, if nothing else, a creature of habit.

“And all the kisses she could find on my lips… but only if she would trade clothes with me when we got back to the room. The idea seemed to amuse you greatly”.The boy sniffed haughtily “Though I doubt that she would have fit in mine”.

“Was she fat then?” Tyrion asked, not remembering her being particularly so, and Satin glared at him.

“She was fatter than I am!” he insisted, sounding bitter. “She would never have gotten her arse in my leggings. Besides, you were already confused enough as to which of us was which. You kept calling her Satin and me Tansy.”

“Ah”. That accounted for the third name then, the other two less of a mystery to him, though he remembered not. He wished that he could let it lie now, but he had to know how the situation the boy had described had led him to him fucking this girl, who in his foggy recollection was not only in her own skirts, but away from their bed and Satin too. “And then?”

The young man looked at him with complete disgust but continued. “Well she said that that sounded too rude for her and I told you that you’d drank too much and should go to your bed and sleep it off and you said” he looked at the ground then, taking a breath before finishing what he had to say. “That the best whores were seen and not heard. Then you set out two gold coins upon the table.”

Two gold coins? Tyrion was sure he could not have wanted a tavern wench that badly. It was only when Satin continued to avoid his gaze that he realised that only one of them had been meant for her, and he felt a pang of guilt.

While the young man was still greatly reliant upon his wealth the nature of their relationship had never been laid out with quite such coarseness before. They’d been travelling together with Tyrion providing for the boy who slept in his bed and in return he had allowed the lord to take his pleasure with him pretty much as he wished but at no point had money so obviously changed hands, and the older man had grown to think of him as something closer to a mistress, perhaps even a sweetheart, of a sort.

“At which point you told me to go hang?” he guessed, and the lad continued to avoid his gaze. I hurt him with this, Tyrion thought to himself, quite surprised. It wasn’t as though Satin thought whoring beneath him; he had it in both his past and his blood.

“No, my lord” came the reply; quiet, shamed. “There was gold upon the table, and you seemed so determined that I thought it best to go along with it. So I stayed, and so did she. But then she kissed me, and I sought to return it and that set you to raging. You were made jealous by her, my lord. You accused me of orchestrating the whole thing, despite the fact that I have no interest in women at all. You accused me of doing things- I don’t even know what. Deceiving you in some way, I think. You told me I was no better than your Shae” he said bitterly. “ _Then_ I told you that if that was how you felt you could stick our arrangement, and that I was going to bed and you could find yourself somewhere else to sleep.”

Tyrion cringed. The only defense he could think of was the far from helpful observation that this was not the same as calling the boy her name, but he doubted it would win him any forgiveness.  “But I came back here?” he asked eventually.

Satin wrinkled his nose. “Aye. After you’d finished rutting with her. You came back, sodden wet through, and that was when you must have thrown up on my cloak. I woke with you shaking me awake, apologising to me all but in tears. You told me that you loved me and only me, and that no whore could ever compare to me. You apologised for ever calling me a whore, because that wasn’t what I was, I was your love. You told me I was the only one who’d ever been true to you”. The boy looked more distressed than ever, and Tyrion swore that he could see his lip tremble. “I forgave you.” He whispered. “Of course I did, how could I not, when you were talking like that? And it was beautiful, for a while, lying with you like that, fucking like it meant something. But when you spent, it wasn’t my name you said.” The boy’s eyes narrowed. “You said ‘Forgive me, Tysha’” he spat and Tyrion’s face fell. Oh, he hadn’t. He couldn’t have, could he? Gods be good. He had, he must have. Through the fog of drunkenness lay the remembrance of tears and regrets, and though he didn’t remember the words being spoken it did not sound unlike him.

He studied the boy more carefully and it was then that he noticed the sack that sat at his feet, the fact that his boots were on. He was dressed but for his cloak, which apparently he had thrown up upon the night before, or else he was sure Satin would already have donned. A moment of understanding passed between them then, and the youth looked weary and more than a little sad. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake.” Satin said quietly. Tyrion did not need to ask why. “Please don’t.” he said simply, closing his eyes. “Don’t go. Not after all this. I could not bear it. ”

“Really?” the boy’s cynicism was palpable. “Well… I can’t bear this” he said stiffly.

Tyrion was up, delving into the bundle that rest by the side of the bed. He didn’t know how much was in his purse, but he would have turned the entire thing out into the boy’s lap if it would make him stay. “I insulted you last night. I know that I did. Let me make it up to you. I’ll buy you something nice. Something beautiful. Jewellery. You seem a boy who appreciates –“

“Not being treated with like a toy!” Satin interjected. “For fuck’s sakes…You’re more like every man I’ve ever been with than any man I’ve ever been with! You pay me to be your mummer, then you despise me as a liar. You show me kindness than curse me for drawing it from you. You… you…” the youth’s eyes were wet, and his hand shook. “I’m _her_ for you in the dead of night, but if she was a whore like me you would hate her the way that you hate me. You only decided you wanted her back when you found out she was not-” his voice cracked, and mumbled then, losing pride, losing face and past caring. “Like me. If she were just me… you wouldn’t care. Not where she is, not what happened to her. You only wanted vengeance for her when you found she wasn’t like me” there was a childish hiccup to the words that made him sound younger than he was, as young perhaps as he had told Tyrion he was when first they gotten talking.

 Tyrion tried to remember what he’d said of Tysha the last time he was in his cups. Or the time before that. He’d spoken about the short but blissful fortnight he’d spent in a tumble-down hovel with the sweetest girl he’d ever known, he was sure… and what happened after, and he must have told him about Jaime, too he supposed, that sounded right to his mind. But he couldn’t recall Satin seeming anything but happy to listen to him, full of sympathetic nods and noises. Of course, Tyrion thought to himself, he wouldn’t though, would he?  Satin would not have been so undisciplined as be anything but sweet.

No, his pretty young companion would have sat there, passive and silent and listened to him go on and on about how his poor Tysha had been violated and cast out like a whore and he had not sought her justice until he’d found out that she was nothing of the sort and the boy wouldn’t have said anything at all. Tyrion felt wretched suddenly with the realisation that the pain that he was seeing now was nothing new, and might have wondered how he’d not seen it before, except that he knew that he’d never looked, never considered that his words might wound. He hadn’t thought that the blank but bright smile that Satin kept upon his face concealed anything but disgust or contempt, certainly not pain.

“You’re right.” He admitted, unable to deny it. “I have not treated you well.” he shook his head and sighed wearily “I did not think you would care so long as I continued to provide for you, in truth. But you do, and now I know it will be different. I’ll be better behaved.” He moved to the chair and placed his hand upon the other’s arm. “If you’ll give me another chance.”

The boy’s eyes were dark as dragon glass, and in many ways it was a fitting comparison; for while Satin seemed sharp and hard he looked fragile somehow. Brittle. “Alright.” Satin relented, his chin tilted upward with purposeful haughtiness. “For now. But you have to be kind.” He added, firmly. “You can’t keep me cruelly. I’d rather make my way on my own than spend my life as your training bag”.

Tyrion shook his head. “No bad behaviour, nothing cruel. Just you being pretty and sweet, and me appreciating it” he promised, and the tentative half smile that he received in return was so enchanting in its sincerity he felt sure it was an oath he would manage well.


End file.
